“An awful affair.” The old man nodded deliberately and regarded Magdalena through his pince-nez like an exotic beetle through a magnifying lens. “The word is that it was set by two arsonists-a man and a woman. We have quite good descriptions of both, and it looks as though the responsibility’s fallen to me to deal with this wretched business. As if I don’t have enough on my plate already… But here, I’m going on and on!” The treasurer instantly transformed into a kindly old man again. “I haven’t even introduced myself yet. My name is Paulus Mamminger; I’m responsible for the financial matters in our great city.” He made a small, stiff bow.
“Certainly an important job.” Sweat was streaming down Magdalena’s back now and surely seeping through her bodice. Her desperate attempt to keep up proper formal speech sounded ridiculous, even to her own ears, and she harbored no doubts the treasurer must have seen through her long ago.
Mamminger sighed and sipped from his glass. “At present not a soul in the council envies me this job. The coming Reichstag is costing us a fortune! And alas, I can’t find enough suitable lodging for the ambassadors and noblemen!” He shook his head, giving way to a long pause.
“And why has the kaiser summoned a meeting of the Reichstag at all?” Magdalena finally asked in an attempt to keep the conversation moving. “I’ve heard it’s about the war with the Turks. Is that true?”
The treasurer grinned. “Child, where have you been hiding? Of course it is! The kaiser needs money to wage war on his most hated enemy. We don’t want those heathens laying siege to Vienna again, do we? So, Kaiser Leopold is passing the collection plate around, and we Regensburgers are stuck with the expense of playing host yet again to spoiled noblemen from all over the empire.”
He sighed deeply, and Magdalena nodded in understanding.
“Just yesterday the Palatine Elector’s quartermaster came to visit me,” he continued, “and His Excellency is insisting on moving here into the Heuport House. But this is the residence of the Venetian ambassador, and he refuses to give up his home for anyone. Perhaps you’d be so kind as to speak with him? Contarini just may listen to you.”
“I fear it’s a hopeless case.” Armed with a plateful of chocolates, Silvio had approached them unnoticed. He now placed an arm around Magdalena’s sweaty shoulder and offered her some sweets. “Dear Mamminger, you’ll never persuade me to abandon this wonderful domicile,” he said with a smile. “Unless
Mamminger frowned. “Schongau? What do you mean, Schongau? I thought-”
“I’ll leave you gentlemen to yourselves now,” Magdalena said, curtsying awkwardly, as if she were a bit tipsy. “The wine has gone to my head-I need a bit of fresh air, I’m afraid.” She held her hand in front of her mouth and yawned, then stepped gingerly in the direction of the exit, still deflecting the mean glares of the other women.
Head held high, she strode through the door and swaggered down a broad stairway into the deserted courtyard. Only then did she allow herself to collapse, exhausted, on a bench and take some deep breaths. No doubt the women were all in a tizzy now, gossiping viciously about the clumsy country wench. Outside, here under the stars, she could at least have a bit of peace.
Almost reverently, Magdalena looked around her at this little bit of paradise in the midst of the city. Scattered among the rosebushes and lemon trees were juniper bushes trimmed into geometric figures. As tall as a man, they looked like mythical creatures in the light of the full moon. None of the guests had ventured into the garden, so the sounds of laughter and music sounded far off. Somewhere in the bushes a nightingale was singing.
Despite her idyllic surroundings, Magdalena was close to tears. Mamminger seemed to suspect something, and it was quite possible that at that very moment he was telling Silvio all about it. What was she doing here anyway, amid all these vain old goats? She wanted to be back with Simon, back in her little world of Schongau, with its faded half-timbered houses, cheap taverns, and down-to-earth farm folk. Only then did it occur to her she could never again return to Schongau; she would never again hear the sometimes gentle, sometimes scolding voice of her mother or stroke the cheeks of her peacefully sleeping siblings. Schongau was at the other end of the world, and her father was here in Regensburg, rotting away in a dark hole, awaiting execution.
A bitter taste rose in Magdalena’s throat. If only Simon were here with her! What would he say if he saw her made-up this way, in a hoop skirt and velvet jacket? The sordid mistress of the Venetian ambassador, a painted doll…
Her sobs were cut short by the sound of something creeping along the garden wall very close by.
Instinctively she slid down from the bench and crouched behind a juniper bush. From there she watched a black figure emerge from the window of a neighboring house and slip almost silently into the garden. When the stranger turned around to face her, she almost cried out.
It was the man from the coffeehouse, the same man who’d torn the Venetian ambassador’s jacket and from whom they’d just barely escaped with their lives. As before, he wore a broad cloak with a hood drawn far down over his face and a rapier dangling at his side. His fluid movements reminded the hangman’s daughter of a spider deftly closing in on a fly caught in its web.
Magdalena was about to turn and run when she realized the man hadn’t even noticed her. He looked around warily before sitting down on a bench, as if he was waiting for something, and kept nervously scanning the broad staircase that led up to the patrician’s house and the ballroom.
Magdalena backed farther onto the dewy lawn behind the juniper bush. She was so close to the bench that she could hear the man breathing.
As the cathedral bells struck midnight, a shadow descended the stairway. Magdalena lifted her head for a moment and froze.
Paulus Mamminger walked purposefully toward the stranger and sat down beside him.
“We don’t have much time,” he whispered. “Contarini will become suspicious if I stay away too long. What’s so urgent that we can’t communicate in the usual way?”
“It’s about the girl,” the stranger said, slightly hoarse. “I think she knows something.”
“Why do you think that?”
“She was at the bathhouse with the medicus. I saw them both there myself.”
Magdalena’s heart skipped a beat. He barricaded them in the well! And he set the fire! The men’s voices were now so low she could hardly hear either of them, so she crept closer to the bench inch by inch.
“How could the girl have found anything more in the bathhouse than we did?” Mamminger wondered.
“I don’t know. It’s just a suspicion, but if she really does know something, it won’t be long before Contarini learns of it, too, and then-”
A juniper branch cracked beneath Magdalena’s foot, and though she froze, it was too late. The stranger had heard something.
“What was that?” he whispered, and stood up. Like a beast of prey trying to detect a scent, he turned his head in all directions.
“Damn you!” Mamminger whispered. “If someone has been eavesdropping on us, then God help you! I should never have agreed to meet with you here!”
“Wait.” The stranger walked slowly toward the juniper bush behind which Magdalena crouched, trembling. Step by step he drew closer.
When he was nearly on top of the bush, Magdalena jumped up and threw a handful of pebbles in his face. Cursing, he swiped at his eyes, and in the ensuing confusion Magdalena ran toward some rosebushes growing up a wooden lattice on the wall of a nearby house.
“Damn it! That’s the girl! Stop her!” Mamminger cried, but the hangman’s daughter had already climbed up the shaky trellis of roses and wild raspberries to an open window. Ignoring the sound the red jacket made as it ripped and the thorns digging into her hands, she scrambled over the windowsill and tumbled into the room behind. Breathless, she saw she’d landed in the servants’ quarters. Next to a battered wooden table and a chest was a narrow bed with a girl in it, a nightcap pulled down over her head. The girl sat up, rubbed her eyes, and when she saw the hangman’s daughter began to scream.
“Excuse the interruption. I’m on my way out,” Magdalena mumbled as she ran to a door on the opposite side of the room and onto the balcony behind it. The pitch of the screaming intensified behind her, and the sound of heavy steps followed. Her pursuer was close on her heels.
Magdalena carefully lowered herself over the balcony and jumped the last few yards down. Her landing, broken by a bed of turnips and lamb’s lettuce, was surprisingly soft. Without turning around she ran through the fresh garden soil, her pointed heels sinking into the damp ground like plowshares.
